Andy Pettitte will have his number retired by the Yankees this summer, but it may be a while longer before questions about his admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs are retired.

The former Yankees left-hander, who admitted to using PEDs on two occasions after he was named in the Mitchell Report in 2007, said during Tuesday’s “The Michael Kay Show” on ESPN New York 98.7 he used human growth hormone to heal an injury, not to enhance his performance.

“People are going to say what they want to, believe what they want to,” Pettitte said. “When you say PEDs to me, man, I just can’t even comprehend that with me just because I don’t believe I ever did anything to try to enhance my performance on the field. If I would have, I would have told y’all that.

“Man, my story has been an open book. … I was told that [HGH] might be able to help me heal from an injury, in a time when I was searching and desperate to get back on the field. And that’s it. When you say that — and people are going to believe what they want to believe — it makes me cringe.

“I’ve never tried to do anything to cheat and I’ve never tried to do anything to enhance my performance on the field. … I don’t even know how to answer the question really.”

Pettitte also said he was puzzled by the shot former teammate Chuck Knoblauch took at him on Twitter after it was announced Pettitte’s No. 46 would be retired in a pregame ceremony Aug. 23.

“Congrats to 46,” the former second baseman tweeted. “Yankees retiring his number. Hopefully they don’t retire it like his HGH testimony.”

“I have a wonderful relationship with Chuck, I thought,” Pettitte said. “I’m not mad at him. … I don’t know why he would say that. However Chuck feels about me it in no way would represent how I feel about him.”

As for the honor itself, Pettitte said he was “really just speechless.”

“I didn’t know what to say but thank you, thank you,” he said. “What an honor. … I’m just so fortunate to have played for the organization [which] put me around such great players every year [with] an opportunity to win. It was just a special place to be.”